Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 16:35:22 -0400 From: "Larry Pratt" Subject: Another eulogy for Larry Adler
This from his hometown newspaper
- -------------------- Adler's simple harmonica became a royal instrument - --------------------
Appreciation: Baltimorean Larry Adler, who played his mouth organ with the same zest as he brought to his life on many of the world's stages, dies at 87.
By Carl Schoettler and Bill Glauber Sun Staff
August 8, 2001
Larry Adler was a tough little kid from Baltimore with a quick wit, a sharp tongue and an immense talent for playing the harmonica.
When he died in London yesterday from cancer and "an accumulation of many things," according to his literary agent, Diana Tyler, Adler, 87, was still a brilliant, testy, raconteur and a nonpareil virtuoso of the harmonica.
He had single-handedly made the lowly mouth organ into a serious concert hall instrument, and he remained the instrument's singular master. He was the only harmonica player listed in Who's Who, Grove's Dictionary of Music, the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Oxford Companion to Music, according to his manager.
Composers Darius Milhaud, Joaquin Rodrigo, Ralph Vaughan Williams and John Tavener all wrote pieces specifically for him and his mouth organ.
Sting, the pop star who joined him and Elton John, Peter Gabriel, Sinead O'Connor, Cher and a host of other singers on the 1994 Glory of Gershwin album, said "He was one of the youngest old men I ever met. He was a great man. Sadly missed."
Adler was born on Feb. 10, 1914, on Washington Boulevard (then known as Columbia Avenue) to Louis Adler, a plumber, and his wife, Sadie. He reportedly started out singing in local pool halls in Baltimore at age 2 and in synagogues as a cantor at age 10. He was about 12 and playing piano when he was kicked out of the Peabody Preparatory School. The principal's condescension annoyed him, he recalled:
"And what are we going to play today, my little man?" the principal asked. A Grieg waltz was scheduled. Adler played "Yes, We Have No Bananas."
"I didn't like that 'we' business, and I don't like being called a little man," he said in interviews a few years ago. "That was the end of my academic education."
(Although he never lost the edgy toughness that got him bounced from the music school, the Peabody made amends in 1985. Adler was guest of honor and featured soloist at the prep school's 90th anniversary.)
The Peabody principal was partly right, at least, when it came to Adler's height. He never got to be very tall - a couple inches over 5 feet, maybe. Musically, he got very big indeed.
Adler was 13 when he won the old Evening Sun harmonica contest. "When I saw in The Sun that I was the state's best mouth organ player, it went straight to my head," he said. "That was my trouble in my early years: I believed all my publicity."
Hitting the big time
About a year later he took off for New York City and the big time: Borrah Minevich and his Harmonica Rascals. Minevich wanted slapstick. Adler played Beethoven's Minuet in G. "You stink," Minevich said, and fired him. And that's about the last time Adler got a bad review.
He lost his $18-a-week job with Minevich, but landed a vaudeville gig that paid him $100 a week. He never looked back. One admirer during those years was George Gershwin. Adler recalled that the first time he played "Rhapsody in Blue" was in a duet with George Gershwin at a New York party in the 1930s.
"When we finished playing, George got up and said 'the damn thing sounds as if I wrote it for you.' "
Adler played with all the greats. Billie Holiday once told him, "Man, you don't play that thing - you sing it."
Adler first went to Britain in the early '30s when an English impresario signed him to star in the London review Streamline. He became and remained hugely popular in Britain, where his fans included the Duke of Windsor and most of the rest of the royal family.
He settled permanently in England in 1949, when he was blacklisted in America for his leftist proclivities.
"I was on every left-wing organization you could think of," he said in a 1990 interview. But he said he was never a communist. He could no more knuckle under to a party line than he could to the Peabody principal. But, characteristically, he also refused to name names.
"That was never in my provenance at all," he said. "You know as you get older, you're supposed to get mellower. Not me."
Adler's last performance in Baltimore was two years ago, where he played "Rhapsody" once again. He was accompanied by a digital piano reproducing a piano roll Gershwin made, a ghostly effect with the keys moving as if the composer were playing.
Adler believed that artistically, he was better than ever.
"I know I'm playing better today than I did last year," he said, "because I know a little bit more about music."
Lots of people agreed with him. He received a standing ovation from the audience, and a Sun reviewer wrote: "Adler demonstrated the sort of musicality and virtuosity that enabled him to elevate his instrument to concert status ... He actually made the work's orchestral part sound as if it had been specifically written for the harmonica."
A comment that in effect echoed Gershwin's of more than 60 years earlier.
Determined to play
Adler's last performance in England or anywhere else - was earlier this year. He was quite ill from cancer and already was in the hospital when he received a request to play for the Duke of Edinburgh's 80th birthday celebration in Royal Albert Hall.
(He and the duke had belonged to the Thursday Club, whose members, including the actors David Niven and Peter Ustinov, "enjoyed long, boozy lunches at Wheeler's Restaurant in London's Soho," according to the British Broadcasting Company. )
"He checked himself out of hospital," said his son, Peter Adler, "got himself to the Albert Hall, came on in a wheelchair to a standing ovation, played his pieces and went back to the hospital. A trouper to the end."
Perhaps that's because he never lost his zest for performance.
He said once: "To me, it's a great joy to play. I don't think there's anything to compare with knowing you're playing a piece of music you love and you're playing it well.
"It's better than sex."
Adler's two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by four children, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A private funeral is planned.
